Stephanie: With your husband, was it love at first sight?

Meggon: It was love at first sight. In an unusual way, being as he let his fellow co-worker date me first before we actually dated.

Stephanie: Oh dear! What’s the most romantic memory you have of your husband?

Meggon: The most romantic memory I have of my husband–which I can hardly say is that romantic, because thinking back on it, it’s funny as well–is when he proposed to me after a night out at the country bar where I met him. We stood outside my house and he tells me that he’s been carrying around this ring for two weeks. He felt the right time to ask would be now. So standing there looking at me as I was looking at him, he asked if I would marry him.

Stephanie: So he’s the real pragmatic sort. Here honey, marry me so I don’t have to keep carrying around this rock!

Meggon: Exactly. He’s not the type who likes surprises.

Stephanie: What made you fall in love with him?

Meggon: His sense of humor, and his spontaneity, as well as the gentlemen he was. Opening the doors, letting me order first… you get the idea.

Stephanie: And how long have you been married now? Did you know what you were getting into being married to a military man at the time?

Meggon: We have been married for four years. I kinda knew what I was getting into when I got married to him, but never expected the extra emotional baggage that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has brought into our lives.

Stephanie: What made you decide to create the Facebook group for military wives?

Meggon: I made the facebook group because you can never have enough resources or support group when the husband leave for deployment whether its Iraq or Afghanistan. Not only for that, but also for the post war symptoms which follow after the deployment such as PTSD.

Stephanie: I’m told that PTSD is just as difficult on the spouses as it is on the soldiers. Do you have any experience with that?

Meggon: PTSD is definitely as difficult on us, as spouses, as it is on soldiers. You deal with a lot of depression, anxiety, anger issues and lack of feelings from it. Its ten times harder then civilian marriage in my opinion because the military spouse deals with it all. Its like walking on eggs shells. There’ve been countless times when I, as a military spouse, wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and say, “I can’t do this anymore.” It is easier said than done in most cases.

Stephanie: How does it impact your daughter? Does she notice?

Meggon: She has no idea what is wrong with daddy. She knows when mommy is not having a great day, and by doing so, she acts out. If I were to tell my daughter anything. It would be to just love her father regardless of the illness’s he may have.

Stephanie: In my research for my latest novella, WILD, TETHERED, BOUND, I was surprised at the variety of ways that I was told PTSD could manifest. My imagination was particularly captured by one woman’s description that the illness made it as if her husband had become two, or even three different people inside one body. Does that read true to you, and if so can you elaborate on what that person might have meant?

Meggon: That is true. It feels like you don’t even know your own husband–this same man you married. The soldiers have symptoms so much like multiple personalities that it makes you believe it, in a sense. They get angry easier, their anxiety level is alot higher, and they have a lack of feeling emotion…or even the need to have feelings.

Stephanie: Are there coping mechanisms you develop to deal with it?

Meggon: There aren’t many coping mechanisms you can develop unless you both go to a family counselor who specializes in helping families with PTSD. It’s more the soldier himself who has the coping mechanisms. I seem to vent to my frustrations to my friends who are military spouses. Usually I just take a deep breath and tell myself that this isn’t the person I married. He will break free from this illness and I will have my husband back.

Stephanie: Is there anything you’d like people to know about being a military spouse, or reaching out to others like your Facebook group?

Meggon: Don’t be hesitant to seek out someone to vent your frustrations especially if you’re in a group such as Military Wives. There will always be someone out there willing to just listen. I am one who is willing to listen to anyone vent there frustrations.

Stephanie: I understand that military families fight for our country, but it sounds like you have to fight for your relationships too. Romance readers believe in happy endings. Do you?

Meggon: I do believe in happy endings but there are times where happy endings only come to those who choose to make the ending happy as well.

Tags: military romance, military spouses, military wives

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Military Lives--Real Love Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.